


the worlds that spin beyond our atmosphere

by antediluvian



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding, background Stinger Apini
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antediluvian/pseuds/antediluvian
Summary: When Jupiter woke up, there was a small metal sphere on the pillow beside her. She blinked at it, because it certainly had not been there when she had gone to bed the night before. Then Aunt Nino began to stir and grumble as she too woke up and Jupiter snatched up the sphere, lobbing it hastily into her half-packed suitcase on her way to go and make the coffee.In which Jupiter is propositioned by a space travel agency (but fancier!) and introduces Caine to her family.





	the worlds that spin beyond our atmosphere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snarkasaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkasaurus/gifts).



> I was thrilled to get you as my assignment and I hope you have a lovely Yuletide! <3

When Jupiter woke up, there was a small metal sphere on the pillow beside her. She blinked at it, because it certainly had not been there when she had gone to bed the night before. Then Aunt Nino began to stir and grumble as she too woke up and Jupiter snatched up the sphere, lobbing it hastily into her half-packed suitcase on her way to go and make the coffee.

**********

The morning was an obstacle course of requests. _Get the post, Jupiter_ segued into _Jupiter, we need more milk_ became _the tea is cold, put the kettle on_ became _don’t forget to rebook the Cranshaw house, they asked to change the day, Jupiter you will have three houses next Friday_ , and it meant that by the time Jupiter had successfully navigated them, she had not only mostly forgotten about the mysterious sphere but Vladie had also used up most of the hot water in the shower.

Jupiter stood under the tepid spray, which was well on its way to just being cold, and thought _I own this planet_.

She had found herself thinking that a lot over the past year. It still hadn’t really sunk in, despite the pale shine of the Entitled sigil on the tender inside of her wrist. The idea of owning an entire _planet_ still seemed as ludicrous now as it had then. But it helped a little bit, as she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and shivered under the cooling water.

And she would see Caine tonight and they would have the whole weekend together, even if they would have to spend at least some of that time going through the sheaves that Caine had been collecting on her behalf. Being intergalactic royalty meant more bureaucracy than Jupiter had ever allowed for in the daydreams she had used to use to while away the time spent cleaning. Strangely, bureaucracy had not played any part in those fantasies.

But she had so many things that were better than those dreams now.

“Jupiter!” Her mother hammered on the door, her voice already distracted. “Quit daydreaming! You want to spend the whole day in the shower?”

“No, mama,” Jupiter called back, turning off the water - which was truly cold now - and wrapping herself in her towel. Perhaps she could go flying with Caine again, she thought, once they were done with the sheave work. Her stomach felt pleasantly full of anticipation at the thought. There was not time for flying during the week and, truth be told, Jupiter was a little nervous to do it on her own. There was something about knowing Caine would catch her if something went wrong that made it a lot easier to enjoy the stomach-swooping thrill of soaring through the air.

She smiled at herself in the mirror. She would braid her hair, she thought, and wear the new shirt she had bought with Mikka on Tuesday. Between now and then there were just two houses and the Blythe-Warrington’s penthouse to get done.

Jupiter reached for her bra.

“Jupiter!” Vladie now, at the door. “What are you doing in there?”

“Getting dressed,” Jupiter said patiently, hooking her bra up and shimmying into her underwear.

“In the bathroom?” Vladie sounded scandalised by this lack of consideration. “I need to take a shit!”

Well. That successfully grounded the excited butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Jupiter rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt, secured her towel around her, and grabbed the rest of her clothes as she exited the bathroom. “Charming.”

Vladie barged past her. He shouted back, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

**********

Jupiter had driven out to the Apini farm often enough over the past year that she no longer missed the turning. Caine was waiting for her on the front porch and the sight of him did something funny to Jupiter’s heart, as it always did. She was flushed and grinning like an idiot as she got out of the car.

Then Caine came swiftly down the steps and caught her in a hug, one that she returned with enthusiasm. His mouth was in her hair, so that Jupiter could feel his smile even if she couldn't see it, and she pressed her own smile to the warm line of his throat. His wings brushed silky and soft against the backs of her knuckles, her palms flat on the strong line of his back.

“Hey,” she murmured, hugging him as fiercely as she could. “I guess you missed me too?”

Caine drew back just enough that he could look at her, his green eyes dark and serious. “Always.”

Jupiter knew she was grinning like a dork. She didn’t care. She slid her arms around his neck and turned that beaming happiness up to him. “So… how much sheave work did you bring me this time?”

“Some,” Caine said, lips quirking, his eyes soft. He bent his head to her smile as though drawn to it, his breath warm on her lips. “More than last time, less than the time before.”

Jupiter sighed, gusty and exaggerated, and Caine laughed at her. Jupiter loved his laugh, loved the happiness in it. She was just leaning up to taste that laughter on his lips when the porch door banged open and—

“Get a room!” Stinger called. “Canoodling on my lawn like a pair of teenagers. No offence, your Majesty.”

Caine gave a soft huff of laughter against her lips, resting his forehead against hers in mock despair.

Jupiter gave him a quick kiss and looked over Caine’s shoulder at their host for the weekend, laughter in her face. “I thought we had one.”

“So you do,” Stinger said equably. “Shall I bring your bags up?”

“I’ve got it,” Caine said. He brushed his lips over Jupiter’s forehead and then moved around to the passenger side of the car to collect her suitcase.

Jupiter watched him for a moment, just because she could - because he was there, with her, and seeing him lit her heart with happiness. Then she trotted up the steps to greet Stinger, catching him as he went to kneel and pulling him into a hug instead.

A heartbeat of hesitation, and then he hugged her back.

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” she told his shoulder, smiling.

“Jupiter,” Stinger said, quiet and serious, “it is my honour.” Then, louder, as he pulled back and Caine came up the steps, “I figure I owe the pup a place to court his mate.”

“Stinger,” Caine said, with no particular force.

Stinger bared his teeth in a sharp grin, but let it drop. “Kiza’ll be happy to see you,” he said. “You’re her favourite Entitled now, your Majesty.”

**********

Kiza was indeed happy to see them. She insisted that they all sit down and drink glasses of cold dark tea sweetened with thick spoonfuls of honey while she filled Jupiter in on the latest holofeed gossip about the Houses.

“Kiza,” Stinger said wearily, “Jupiter isn’t going to care about all of that-”

“Actually,” Jupiter said, “it’s pretty useful for me. I’m still learning about all of this, remember.”

And it _was_ useful. It was a very different perspective to the one she got from Caine, but just as useful in its way. Whatever Jupiter felt about being Seraphi’s Recurrence, it was good for her to learn more about the society it had made her part of.

Caine gave her a look, blank-faced, though the corners of his eyes were crinkled with amusement. “True,” he said. “The ‘feeds provide context.”

Kiza stuck her tongue out at Stinger, who shrugged. “Alright,” he said. “Have you decided to stop being a recluse then, your Majesty?”

There was something about the way he said it— Jupiter gave him a thoughtful look and Caine growled softly, his eyes suddenly fixed on Stinger.

“You think that I’m being a recluse,” Jupiter said slowly, watching Stinger’s face. He was staring back at Caine, but he gave her a quick, sidelong look.

“I mean no disrespect, Majesty,” he said, gaze returning to Caine. “So you can wipe that look off your face, boy.”

Caine’s lip curled a little, like he was thinking about showing his teeth. Jupiter put her hand casually on his knee under the table and said to Stinger, “But you don’t approve of it. Why?”

Stinger kept staring at Caine, whose leg was tense under Jupiter’s hand as he stared back. Jupiter caught Kiza’s eye for a moment of shared commiseration over the silliness of men, then dug her fingers more firmly into the muscles of Caine’s thigh. She felt the shiver that went through him, followed by the deliberate relaxation of his muscles. “Stinger. Why don’t you approve?”

Stinger sighed and looked away from Caine, looked at her. The tension drained out of the room like air from a balloon. “It’s not that I don’t approve, your Majesty. But whatever you do, however you live, you’re an Entitled now. You’re part of that world, whether you want to be or not, and that means at some point you’re going to need to decide how you want to _be_ part of it. Because it won’t ignore you forever. It can’t. And you can’t ignore it either.”

Even though he spoke patiently, Jupiter still felt faintly chastised. She swallowed it down. “I do all of my sheave work,” she objected. “I’m not ignoring my responsibilities.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Stinger said mildly. “You take care of your responsibilities directly, which is more than almost any other Entitled. But no one knows who you are, Jupiter, your Majesty, you’re a mystery. And people get curious about mysteries. Look, there are a lot of reasons I think you should be thinking about this and I’m not going sit here and list them at you. This one,” he jerked his chin toward Caine, who stiffened again, “can do that later. Because he knows too. Right, boy?”

“She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to,” Caine said, his voice low and throaty with irritation.

“OK,” Jupiter said, with a lightness she didn’t completely feel. “I’ll think about it." She let a beat or two pass and then added, "Thank you for your advice.”

Stinger gave her a quick nod, taking a long swallow of his tea.

Kiza said, “If you have any questions, Majesty…”

Jupiter smiled at her. “Then I’ll know who to ask,” she said warmly. The tips of Kiza’s ears went pink and she turned her delighted smile down to her hands around her glass, hair falling in a curtain around her face.

Beneath the table, Caine’s hand found hers on his knee. He covered it briefly and then traced a light pattern over her knuckles, which sent a sudden rush of warmth over Jupiter’s skin.

“Anyway,” she said, proud of her steady voice. “Speaking of sheave work…”

She stood up, Caine coming with her, and was briefly amused and disconcerted when Kiza and Stinger shot to their feet as well to bow her out of the room.

Jupiter wasn’t sure she would ever fully get used to that.

“Sheave work…?” Caine said behind her, low, his warmth stalking her spine.

“My responsibilities,” Jupiter agreed primly, hiding her smile. "Can't neglect them."

**********

They did do the sheave work. Eventually.

**********

Jupiter woke to the sunlight spilling through a gap in the curtain, filling the room with a languid golden light like molten honey. Jupiter yawned contentedly and stretched until her spine made a gentle popping sound. There was no Caine, but the mattress still bore the imprint of his body beside her. It was late in the morning, she thought, judging by the rich quality of the light.

A few bees flew lazy helices in the air above her, something happy and reassuring about their low buzzing. Jupiter lifted her hand to them, smiling when they shifted to circle the flicker of her fingers.

She loved these weekends at Stinger’s house. The spare room was spare indeed, with nothing but a few shelves and a king mattress on the floor, but Jupiter had stubbornly resisted Stinger’s offers to turn it into something more befitting royalty on holiday. This was perfect, Jupiter told him, this was all they needed.

It was going to be difficult to make herself get up. Jupiter felt almost boneless she was so relaxed, and the sheets were soft and warm against her naked skin. She should get up though, she thought, and get breakfast. Caine was probably already down there.

Thinking of Caine reminded her of the strange sphere she had brought with her. Yawning again, Jupiter sat up and grabbed her t-shirt, pulling it over her head before hopping up to go through her suitcase.

She found the sphere at the bottom of it, tangled in the legs of her spare jeans. It was cool to the touch when she picked it up and lighter than she expected when she weighed it in her palm. It was made of interlocking pieces of silver-coloured metal - perhaps it was some kind of puzzle? Jupiter still had no idea who might have left it for her, though.

She wandered around the room slowly on bare feet, followed by her languorous bee attendants, turning the sphere over thoughtfully.

Then, experimentally, she squeezed it.

The interlocking pieces burst apart between her fingers and colour exploded into the room.

Jupiter cried out, momentarily blinded, and then marvelling.

She stood on a beach of shining pearlescent pink sand, the sky above her the dusky bruised colour of a ripe plum, flooded with the pinprick brilliance of thousands of stars in constellations that Jupiter did not recognise. The sea that lapped at the shore reflected the sky, a carpet of shining lights, and for a moment Jupiter could smell something fresh and sweet, like apricots and newly cut grass.

 _Oh wow_ , she thought. Or perhaps it was a whisper.

She turned slowly on the spot, her free hand pressed to her chest, the rabbit of her pulse thumping against her palm. There was laughter blossoming up from her, incredulous and delighted.

She took a couple of steps towards the sea and, in that moment of movement, felt the wooden floorboards beneath her bare feet. She wasn’t really on the beach, Jupiter thought, although it had felt like it in that first breathless moment of wonder. But the floorboards under her feet anchored her and told her that, all appearances to the contrary, she was still in the spare room in Stinger’s house. She hadn’t been transported anywhere; this beach was just an illusion.

But a very convincing illusion. She could hear the waves, whispering with their wet silvery voices against the sand.

Jupiter looked down at the sphere in her hand. “How on earth do I turn this off?”

“Like this, your Majesty,” Caine said, right by her ear.

Jupiter made an extremely undignified noise and reflexively hit him with her elbow. He gave a soft grunt, but his warm fingers were already closing around hers, pressing on the pieces of the sphere in a way that made the world around her waver and thin down.

It was a bit dizzying. Jupiter closed her eyes and leaned back against the solid support of Caine’s chest.

When she opened her eyes again, the beach had been reduced a 3D hologram the size of an A4 piece of paper, projected above the sphere.

“Huh,” Jupiter said, staring at it.

Caine let go of her hand and stepped around her to study the image himself. His forehead was furrowed. “Where did you get this, your Majesty?”

“Someone left it in my room at home,” Jupiter said. She squinted a little at Caine, trying to gauge his expression. It was difficult. “Is it bad?”

“No…” Caine said, slowly. “It’s… an offer.”

“For what?” Jupiter asked. She had a brief wild vision of someone trying to buy or claim the Earth from her (again), or perhaps offering her their hand in marriage (again), or hoping that she would provide some form of closure for something they had missed out on from Seraphi (again).

Caine reached out and plucked the sphere from her hand, turning it over until he found what he was looking for. “An invitation. It’s from the Consortium of Tsakanthi.”

“Who are they?” Jupiter said. “An invitation for what?”

“They arrange interplanetary experiences,” Caine said, “for a select body of people.” He held up the sphere. “This is an example of one of those experiences.”

Jupiter blinked at him. “So…” she said slowly. “You mean… like a travel agent? They’re a galactic travel agent?”

Caine’s lips twitched. “Something like that.”

Jupiter gestured at the sphere. “So this… this is like an _advert_?”

“You could say that.”

“So…why?” Jupiter asked, folding her arms.

“Hold on,” he said. “There’s another layer to the message.”

He tapped the sphere briskly and a line of text scrolled across the shining pink sands. _Lady Jupiter Jones, Recurrence of the Lady Seraphi, Prime of the House of Abrasax, is invited to the House of Tsakanthi at a time and date of her choosing. We offer a complimentary tour of our prime marine estates surrounding the Sea of Estrela on Sathur as a token of our regard and look forward to receiving her visit in due course._

“Ah,” said Jupiter, tapping her chin. “Is this a bribe?”

Caine was definitely fighting his grin now. He said, carefully straight-faced, “I believe it is a token of regard, Majesty, intended to sweeten the invitation. So perhaps yes, a bribe.”

Jupiter hesitated, tracing her hand wistfully over the wavering image of the beach. The waves rolled and crashed against the miniature shore, gleaming as though they held the light of the stars in their depths. “What do you think they want?”

“To court you, your Majesty,” Caine said. “To pay you the honour that you deserve.”

Jupiter gave a short, breathless laugh and shook her head. “Why- no, don’t, I know why. The Entitled thing. But why now? It’s not like I’ve been drowning in attention. I mean, the last time…”

She trailed off.

The last time people had been lining up to pay court to her, Jupiter thought, it had been the Abrasax siblings, and the purpose behind their attention had been marriage, murder and manipulation.

The same thought had obviously also crossed Caine’s mind. The look he gave her was gentle. He said quietly, “For what it is worth, while the Consortium may have an ulterior motive, I do not think they would act with malicious intent toward you. And you do not have to accept their invitation, Jupiter. Not if you don’t want to.”

Jupiter touched her fingertips to those shining pink sands again, the bruised plum sky, something fierce and wanting unfurling in her chest. She said, “What if I do want to?”

A smile touched Caine’s lips. He said, “Then you would not be without protection there.”

Jupiter smiled at him, a little mischievous. “You would come with me? On holiday?”

“I would come anywhere you asked me,” Caine said simply.

The earnestness on his face stole Jupiter’s voice from her throat. She reached out and touched her palm to his cheek, his stubble rough against her skin. His eyelids lowered a little, but he watched her still, intent and calm.

When she stroked her palm down the side of his throat, he shivered.

Jupiter bit her lip, her eyes on her hand against Caine’s skin. She said, “Where is it?”

Caine swallowed against her hand. His voice was a little huskier than before when he said, “Sathur is in the Lorenium System."

“Have you gone there before?” 

Caine blinked once, very slowly. His pulse had sped up under Jupiter’s fingers. “No.”

“Do you want to?” Jupiter asked.

“Do _you_ want to, your Majesty?” Caine countered.

Jupiter thought about it. Stinger had said she needed to start thinking about the part she wanted to claim in this much larger world, and this could be a step in that direction. _The honour due to you_ , Caine had said. But it was more than that. She had felt such a sense of wonder in that first moment as the beach had burst into being around her, with its sea full of the reflection of alien stars in an alien sky. She couldn't say no to that. Not yet.

She said, “Yes.”

**********

The ship they took to meet with the Consortium was small, slim and silver, a hummingbird of a vessel with elegant fins. Caine took the pilot’s seat once they were on board and Jupiter spent several long minutes wandering around and examining everything. The interior of the ship was a warm smoky red, moulded like the sea-smoothed interior of a cave, ripples of light pulsing through its walls.

Jupiter loved it.

“Did they send this for us?” she asked.

“No, Majesty,” Caine said, the corner of his mouth drawing up. “It’s mine.”

“Yours?” Jupiter paused with her hand on the wall, watching the light limn her hand as though the ship were responding to her touch. Perhaps it was. “When did you get a ship?”

“Your Majesty needed a ship for this meeting,” Caine said mildly.

“You _bought_ a space ship because of this meeting?” Jupiter was horrified. “How much was it? I’ll have to pay you back—”

“Do you like the ship?” Caine interrupted, flipping a lever. His eyes met hers briefly in the reflection of the window. Stars shone in the darkness of space around them.

Jupiter traced her fingers down the wall. The light trailed her fingers, a ripple of paler colour in the wall. It made her think of the swirl of smoke over water. “I love it,” she said quietly, and was rewarded by the quick flash of Caine’s smile.

“Then that’s good enough,” he said.

Jupiter laughed and started to say something, then cut herself off, her eyes on the thing that had just appeared in front of them. “Is that…”

“The Consortium’s primary vessel,” Caine confirmed.

Unlike their own ship, the Consortium’s was neither small nor slim. It was a huge silver ring surrounding a large gleaming globe that, as they drew closer, was apparently made of a cage of silver wire and shining glass. Slender struts connected the outer ring to the central globe and there were smaller gleaming metallic globes drifting around the outside edge of the ring, connected to it by the thinnest of wires. It was such a strange, whimsical structure that Jupiter couldn’t stop staring at it.

One of the smaller external globes began to shine as they approached and that was the one that Caine headed for.

When they disembarked, there was a party of three people waiting for them. Jupiter felt that faint shiver of wonder again, confronted by the living evidence of how strange and beautiful the world could be, but there was also a thread of anxiety there. The most glamorous and beautiful things she had seen had been the Abrasax siblings, who were beautiful in the way of venomous snakes or poisonous flowers.

Two of the people were very tall and very thin, dressed in sweeping, shining dresses of robin’s egg blue, their long hair woven into dark braids filled with tiny sparkling lights and shells that clicked softly together when they moved. Their elegant, knife-like faces were smeared with swirls of silver glitter, their eyes limned in it.

The third of their number was shorter and wide-hipped, dressed in breeches the colour of dried blood and a creamy shirt that was loose enough to gape over their breastbone, revealing the pattern of dark red scales that ran from below their collarbones and broke into a swirl along the side of their jaw and temples.

Looking at the three of them, Jupiter thought that she had rather under-dressed for this meeting. She was wearing a new shirt, with birds embroidered on its collar, and a nice pair of jeans.

 _Definitely_ under-dressed.

Scenting her anxiety, Caine discreetly put his hand at the small of her back. Jupiter let the steadiness of his presence reassure her.

When their greeting party saw her, the three of them all broke into smiles and came forward. The tiny coloured lights that had hung in the air around them bobbed along as they moved, circling around them.

“Lady Jupiter,” said the tall blue-clad person on the right. “Welcome to our ship, the Song of Tsakanthi. I am Ayal, formerly of House Maraxa, now of the Consortium of Tsakanthi.”

“Dima, formerly of House Maraxa,” said their counterpart, inclining their head.

The person in breeches smiled and offered Jupiter both hands, palm up.

Jupiter hesitated, then placed her hands on theirs. Their skin was smooth and cool. They said, “Vharo, formerly of House Telenar.”

“Jupiter Jones,” Jupiter said slowly, wondering if she should include the House of Abrasax in her introduction. It didn’t feel like something that belonged to her and she didn't really want to claim it. “And this is Caine.”

Three sets of eyes accorded Caine with a brief, dismissive look.

Dima said, with the barest inflection of a question, “Your bodyguard?”

“My boyfriend,” Jupiter said firmly. She felt Caine shift slightly at her side, as though to catch her arm. He had told her it would be better to introduce him, if at all, as her bodyguard. It would be just as true, and it would be something the Consortium found easier to understand and respect.

But Jupiter wasn’t about to start diminishing the people that were important to her for the sake of the good opinion of those she didn’t even know.

“Oh,” Ayal said, with a little flutter. “How _modern_.”

Jupiter was about to bristle at the way Ayal had said it, but then Vharo turned and simply offered their palms to Caine as well. “A pleasure.”

Caine’s hesitation was longer than Jupiter’s, but then he touched his palms to Vharo’s, light and brief. “The pleasure is mine.”

Ayal opened their mouth to say something else and then made a tiny squeaking sound of pain. Vharo, in stepping back, had trodden quite hard on their foot. Jupiter couldn’t tell if it had been deliberate or not, but it had the effect of shutting Ayal up.

“We are delighted you accepted our invitation, Lady Jupiter,” Dima said smoothly. “Please come this way.”

Caine fell into step beside her as they left the hangar, a tall leather-clad sentinel. He muttered, “You have a phrase on Earth, I believe... 'to put a cat among the pigeons'?”

Jupiter glanced up at him and caught the quirk of his lips. He was pleased, then, by her claiming of him. She smiled to herself and deliberately bumped her arm against his as they made their way down tall, arched corridors full of softly shining lights that wove through the air around them like slow-moving fish.

“Aren’t they lovely?” Ayal asked, catching Jupiter glancing at them. “The Consortium received them years ago from Deltharri. They were invented there, you know.”

“They’re beautiful,” Jupiter said softly. Ayal gave her a swift, surprisingly sweet smile, before they turned into a long, narrow room with a window overlooking the central globe. There were several low sofas and chairs surrounded by small ornate tables with trays of elaborate refreshments on them.

“Please,” Vharo said, subsiding gracefully onto one of the chairs and plucking a shining red cube from a tray to pop in their mouth. “Sit down.”

Jupiter chose the sofa opposite Vharo. It was softer than she had expected, so she sunk further into its cushions than she had planned. Seeing her predicament, Caine did not sit down, but stationed himself at her shoulder instead, a looming, reassuring presence at her back.

Dima served her with a small glass of warm amber liquid that smelled of honey and flowers and tasted the same when Jupiter took a cautious sip.

“So,” Vharo said, as Dima sat next to them. “I expect you want to know why we invited you here?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” Jupiter agreed.

“Because you own the Earth,” said Ayal.

Jupiter’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. She set the glass of honey-flavoured liquid on the table beside her and said shortly, “Yes.”

“We would like to visit it,” Dima said. “With your permission.”

Jupiter blinked. “Why?”

“We are travellers,” Vharo said. “We all come from other Houses originally but we have been called together by our love of exploring the Verse and experiencing the delights of myriad worlds. That was the spark upon which the Consortium was founded.”

This was so far from what Jupiter had been expecting that she couldn’t immediately think of a response.

Finally she said, “You want to… go on holiday to Earth?”

“We want to _experience_ Earth,” Ayal said seriously, leaning forward, their face lit with enthusiasm. “As though we were Terrsies. We want to walk its streets, see its wonders, eat its foods…”

“And we want to enable others to do the same,” Vharo put in, giving Jupiter a small smile.

“OK… but the people on Earth, they don’t know about—” Jupiter waved a hand, encompassing the room and its occupants and the stars outside all in one broad gesture. “Isn’t that going to be a problem?”

“Oh no,” Vharo said reassuringly. “We have strict protocols in place when we visit such worlds.”

Jupiter shook her head a little. “Why? Why do you want to do this?”

“Because Earth is beautiful,” Dima said simply.

Ayal and Vharo both nodded their agreement. “The whole Consortium is in accord,” Vharo added. “If you decide you are interested, we can discuss terms - and, of course, we always offer investment of a certain percentage of our profits to our partner planets to support their development and infrastructure.”

“I don’t know—” Jupiter said slowly.

“Here are some of our partner worlds,” Ayal interrupted. They spread their fingers and each of their rings projected a small glowing hologram of a different world. Places of jagged ice and swirling pink skies, places with luminous green oceans and skeletal trees, places with huge forests full of trees Jupiter had never seen before, cities marbled in shining stone and full of life, fields of strange flowers in vivid colours and twice the size of a very tall person.

Jupiter stared at them.

“Some of my favourites,” Ayal told her. They were clearly pleased by her reaction.

“Perhaps we could arrange for you to visit some of them,” Vharo said, “so that you can see for yourself how we work with our partner worlds? No charge, of course, and no commitment.”

Jupiter hesitated. “I don’t know—”

It wouldn’t mean that she had to say yes, she thought. And, oh, how she wanted to see these strange, beautiful _,_ different worlds, worlds she would not even have been able to glimpse through her telescope but that she now had the opportunity to see with her own eyes and walk upon with her own feet.

She hadn't thought she wanted anything more to do with this huge intergalactic world once she was confirmed as the Recurrence of Lady Seraphi and the Earth was safe.

But.

She longed to explore these stars. Not to rule them, not to use them, but to know them.

Stinger had said _this world can’t ignore you forever. And you can’t ignore it either._

And Jupiter found that she did not _want_ to ignore it.

She bit her lip, divided.

Vharo studied her for a moment and then smiled. “Here,” they said, leaning forward to offer her an embossed card in one hand, a silver sphere in the other, larger than the one left for Jupiter in her room. “My card and a brochure of our highlights. You don’t have to decide now. Think about it, look through the list of our partner planets, and then let me know when you are ready.”

“Thank you,” Jupiter said. “I will. And... if you want to send me a message again, please do it via Caine. It's creepy to break into my room and leave things there.”

Caine made a very soft sound of amusement behind her.

**********

It was more than a month before Jupiter used the card. Her family were busy these days. Business was good and the competition was hungry. Most nights Jupiter fell into bed too tired to think of anything else but every now and again, on certain nights, she found time to flick through the sphere’s list of other planets and she went to sleep with the rolling oceans and brilliant skies of other planets etched across the inside of her eyelids.

And here and there, like oases in her life, the weekends with Caine. The moment they were over it felt as though every cell in Jupiter’s body began to attune itself to the next one.

Her family noticed. They teased her about this “mystery man”, but the comments about getting to meet him were becoming more and more frequent.

As the summer drew on, it got hotter and stickier. The AC in the flat began to struggle. One particularly hot sticky night, lying awake listening to Nino’s snores, Jupiter decided that she had had enough of being tired and too sweaty to sleep. She snuck out of the bedroom and called Caine from the kitchen, on the tiny transponder he had given her for this reason - although perhaps he hadn’t envisioned a call on it at 2:03 in the morning.

Despite the hour, there was no trace of sleep in his low voice when he answered. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jupiter told him, playing with the end of her ponytail. She felt like a ridiculous teenager, standing in her bare feet on the cool tiled floor of the kitchen, on the transponder to her boyfriend. Even the sound of his voice made her smile. “Did I wake you up?”

“I’m glad you did,” he said, his smile warm in his voice. “Want me to come over? We could go flying.”

“I mean… I do want that,” Jupiter admitted. “But I was actually calling for a different reason.”

“Oh?”

Jupiter grinned. “Have you ever gone to a place called Xelliarnos, in the Dumatite System?”

**********

They went to Xelliarnos, with its frozen valleys and rippling auroras, and then they went to Jaya Three, Melinore, Athrassin, Zalithar… they went to sprawling vast forests, elaborate cave systems studded with shining gems, elaborate cities, tiny towns, huge lakes that lay flat and still beneath their shining purple sky until the night time, when the fish that lived in their depths rose to throng the surface.

Every few months they went on a trip to another planet. Jupiter saw how the Consortium operated on each; as promised, they were indeed minimal impact.

And she began to plan.

This latest trip was to the first place the Consortium had shown her: the plum-skied expanse of the Sea of Estrela. They stayed in a tiny hut perched precariously half way up the cliffs and in the morning Jupiter scrambled down the narrow stone steps to run whooping into the apricot-scented sea.

She stood there now, feet sinking into the wet sand, waves breaking around her ankles. Two of Estrela’s four moons were visible in the paling plum sky above her.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” Jupiter called to Caine, who stood further back on the beach, watching her. She waded further in, until the water swirled around her bare thighs, and played her hands over the surface of it. “I promise the water’s warm!”

Caine snorted and came closer, the water lapping at his bare feet. “That wasn’t the reason for my hesitation.”

“What, then?” Jupiter grinned, teasing, so happy she felt as though it were seeping from her very pores. “Are you worried about the fish?”

“No,” Caine said, low, his eyes moving lazily over her. “Just enjoying the view.”

“Ohoh,” Jupiter laughed and made a face at him, splashing some water in his direction. “Shouldn’t I also get a view to enjoy?”

Caine’s smile flashed sharp teeth. “As you command, your Majesty.”

He tugged his shirt off and followed her into the water, moving with a lithe grace that kept Jupiter's eyes on him, on the flex of muscle beneath his skin. When she dragged her eyes up from his bare stomach to his face, she found him watching her watching him. His lips quirked. He said, with deliberation, "Your Majesty?"

Jupiter swallowed and bit her lip. Then she said, “Come here.”

Caine’s lips quirked. He came to her, his eyes intent enough to make her shiver.

Jupiter turned her face up to his and touched the line of his jaw, his stubble scratching gently at her fingertips. She said, “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”

Caine caught her wrist, pressed his lips fervently to her palm. “There’s nowhere I would rather be, Jupiter.”

When she kissed him, Jupiter caught his lower lip lightly between her teeth, for the pleasure of the sound it drew from him. Then she rested her forehead against his and sighed. “My family keep asking to meet my ‘mystery man’.”

Caine laughed softly. His wings curled around her, brushing her skin like silk. Jupiter loved it when he did this. “What are you going to tell them?”

Jupiter hesitated. She had been thinking about this since Athrassin, where they had shared a tiny cabin stranded in the peaks of a towering tree during a spectacular thunder storm. They had spent the two days snuggled together in a hammock and Jupiter had thought, _I want you to be a part of my life for the rest of it_.

“Jupiter?” Caine sounded quizzical now. He tipped his head a little, trying to catch her eyes.

Strangely shy, Jupiter twisted to press her forehead against the side of his neck. Her face felt hot. She said, “I thought I could introduce you to them.”

There was a long silence. Jupiter counted it out in heartbeats. Caine’s hands stilled for a moment on her back, then resumed their steady stroking. Finally he said, “I’m happy to meet your family, Jupiter. More than happy. But… I don’t look human.”

“Which brings me to the other thing,” Jupiter said, biting her lip again. She kissed the side of his neck, the top of his shoulder, and then pulled back a bit so she could look him in the face. “I want to tell them about all of this.”

She waved a hand vaguely at the sea, the sand, the plum-dark sky.

Caine raised his eyebrows, but all he said was, “OK.”

“They’re so important to me,” Jupiter said quietly. “I wouldn’t be who I am without them. I don’t want to leave them behind. But I want this to be part of my life and that means I need to tell them, because I want them to be part of it too.”

Caine nodded. His expression was peaceful. “OK.”

Jupiter rested her palms lightly on his bare chest, grounding herself in the warmth of his skin. “And that means I want to tell them about you too.”

“Jupiter,” Caine said gently. “I get it. I would be honoured to meet your family. Just tell me when, and how to make it easier for you.”

“I love you,” Jupiter told him, in a rush. It wasn’t the first time she had said it, but it felt confessional nonetheless. Caine kissed her then, and again, and in between those frantic, hot kisses, he told her the same thing, burning it into her skin with his mouth like a brand.

**********

Sometime later, Jupiter said, “So… I also need to tell you the other part of the ‘tell my family everything’ plan.”

**********

Caine’s first meeting with Jupiter’s family went precisely as well as she was expecting, which was to say that when Jupiter returned from the kitchen, having put the kettle on, she found Caine sitting on the sofa and the entire Jones-Bolotnikov family arrayed in a semi-circle of interrogation around him and failing to take it in turns as they fired questions at him which ranged from his occupation to his previous girlfriends to his political and religious convictions. Anyone who wasn’t talking was just staring at him, with no shame to their scrutiny.

They clearly thought he was a reprobate or, at the very least, a risky impulse.

To his credit, Caine did not appear fazed by this.

Jupiter went to the rescue nonetheless. Or rather, she went intending to pitch a rescue. But as she sat down next to Caine, Irina lifted her cup of coffee and said, “Ach, Jupiter… the milk in this is no good. Get the milk from the other fridge, OK?”

The milk was fine. Jupiter knew it was fine. She got up anyway, gripping Caine’s shoulder in a quick show of support, and took Irina’s cup from her. “Be kind,” she muttered at her aunt, who gazed at her seraphically.

“And get some of those biscuits,” Vassily told her. “For our guest.”

“OK,” Jupiter said, fighting back the urge to roll her eyes.

Then she couldn’t find the biscuits and Vassily, when yelled to, would only say maddeningly, “In the kitchen, Jupiter.”

She could only hope Caine survived the Bolotnikov onslaught.

When she returned to the living room, however, triumphant with biscuits and fresh coffee, it was to discover that a strange alchemy had taken place there. Nino and Vladie were now sitting on either side of Caine and the whole family were taking it in turns to competitively and somewhat aggressively regale him with anecdotes, interrupting and correcting each other at every moment.

For one brief, shining moment, Caine met her eyes. He looked amused and rather charmed. Then he turned back to Nino, who had her hand on his forearm and was earnestly explaining the story of Jupiter’s birth to him. This might have been touching, but Jupiter caught a fragment of the narrative which included “-and then the placenta-“ and hurled herself across the room to interrupt.

“Aunt Nino— everyone—” she said. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”

“You’re pregnant!” Aunt Irina gasped.

“No!” Jupiter yelped. “Something else—”

“Getting married?” Vassily asked, his eyebrows lowering.

“No,” Jupiter said and raised her hands, trying to forestall any further interruption. She rolled the sleeve of her shirt back, showing them the shining sigil there.“This might take some explaining, but—”

“You got a tattoo?” Vladie exclaimed. “Cool!”

“You were worried about the tattoo?” her mom asked. “Why? You get couple’s tattoos?”

“No!” Jupiter pinched the bridge of her nose.

Her mom shrugged. “OK. Because fine, you’re an adult. You can get tattoos if you want. Just don’t get something you’ll regret.”

“It’s not the tattoo,” Jupiter said. “It’s—”

She trailed off and looked at her family, realising she had no idea how to explain this to them. She looked at Caine, who looked back at her questioningly, then he smiled faintly and said, “Maybe I can help. I have protocols for this.”

**********

He did help.

It still took a very long time to explain and an even longer time to convince Jupiter’s family that she had neither cracked under the pressure of cleaning the Blythe-Warrington’s penthouse nor been indoctrinated into some kind of cult.

But finally, the family fell silent and listened.

Perhaps what clinched it was Jupiter’s mother saying, slowly, _It’s true, I have dreams sometimes about these… lizard people. They came into our flat and took us away somewhere._

And Irina said,  _I have that dream too_.

And then it turned out they had all had that same dream. That nightmare.

 _You don’t need to know what happened_ , Jupiter said. _It’s better if you don’t remember. But I will always keep you safe. I promise_.

Perhaps it was the gravity boots or the pieces of tech Caine kept on him, which he passed around as though at a show and tell.

But all that mattered was that finally, after they had made more tea and then more tea again, Aunt Nino turned to Caine and said, with an air of finality, “So that’s why your ears are pointy. Because you’re an alien.”

And Caine said, “More or less. Not exactly.”

“There’s something else I have to talk to you about,” Jupiter said.

**********

Jupiter called the Consortium that evening.

“I accept your offer,” she said. “Here are my terms.”

**********

“It seems to be going well,” Caine murmured. He turned his head a little to press a kiss into her hair and Jupiter smiled.

“It does,” she agreed. She was watching as her mother and Nino escorted a group of six people from House of Maraxa up the street toward a Krispy Kreme. They had arrived that morning in all their strange and splendid clothes and promptly been herded into a combination of tracksuits and ill-patterned twinsets for this particular tour, much to their rapturous delight.

They had started the pilot scheme at the beginning of winter. It had given Caine time to train Jupiter’s family in the relevant protocols and for the Consortium to plan and promote the first ever Earth Tour. Everyone was very happy. Vassily and Irina kept the cleaning business running at a much reduced scale and Aunt Nino and Jupiter's mom took the lead on organising the tour itineraries. The Consortium pledged fifteen percent of its profits from the Earth Tours to investigating sustainability measures on Earth.

“I told Vharo I don’t want these tours to only be for the Entitled,” Jupiter said, leaning her cheek against the sleeve of Caine’s coat. “They haven’t come back to me yet.”

Caine huffed a quiet laugh. “They might just ignore it, Jupiter. You can’t unmake an entire social hierarchy in a year.”

“Maybe not in a year,” Jupiter said, smiling up at him. “But give me time.”

“Oh,” Caine murmured, leaning down to kiss the corner of her mouth. “I believe in you. So, your Majesty, what next?”

Jupiter made a happy little sound in her throat, leaning into him. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I haven’t decided yet.”

She felt it keenly at moments like this, the unfurling of all this possibility stretched out before her in a way she had only ever dreamed of but never actually dared hope for. The universe was vast and wonderful and she had so much to see and learn and a whole lifetime - and only a lifetime - to do it in. She would only ever have a lifetime, without the use of RegeneX, but that would be enough. She would make it enough.

And now she could bring her family with her.

Jupiter looked up into the winter-stark blue sky, as though she could see through it to the countless stars and planets and worlds beyond.

She smiled and laced her fingers through Caine’s. “I think I’ll pick something awesome.”

 


End file.
